Kickstarter (2009): all-or-nothing crowdfunding lets fans fund creative projects

Kickstarter launched on 28 April 2009 with a deceptively simple contract: a creator sets a funding goal and a deadline of one to 90 days; backers pledge money in exchange for tiered rewards; if the goal is met, every credit card is charged and the creator receives the funds, less a 5% fee; if it falls short, all pledges are cancelled and nobody pays anything. The all-or-nothing rule was the product.

The idea came from co-founder Perry Chen, a New Orleans musician who watched venues gamble on ticket sales and wanted the same conditional logic for artists: if enough people commit, the project happens; if not, no one loses money. Chen, Yancey Strickler and Charles Adler built the site, which was invitation-only at first. The earliest projects were tiny — Drawing for Dollars, offering pencil sketches, raised $35 from three backers — and most projects still raise under $10,000.

The model scaled because it gave both sides what fixed pricing could not. By 2011, around 70 projects launched per day with a success rate below 45%, and a wristwatch for the iPod nano raised nearly $1 million in December 2010. In its first decade Kickstarter saw over $4 billion pledged across projects, games became its most-funded category with over $1 billion, and 15 Kickstarter-funded films received Oscar nominations.